Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

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Biography

Chicago, United States

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are eight brothers from the south side of Chicago. They come from an extraordinary musical family. Other sisters and brothers are professional musicians, their mothers are singers, and Phillip Chohran, their father, has roots running back to Mississippi, his time in the musical hothouse of 1940s St. Louis, and his seminal role with Sun Ra in Chicago in the 1950s. When Ra left for the east coast in 1960, Phil stayed in Chicago.

By the time the members of the HBE were growing up, Phil’s work as a musical activist and educator had led to the establishment of a space called the Sun Ark in a warehouse behind the family home above a furniture shop. At night when they went to bed the children would hear their father rehearsing with his band the circle of sound. They were wakened at 6 a.m. for several hours’ music practice before going to school. From an early age they were a central part of their father’s Youth Ensemble.

Coinciding with this involvement in their father’s ethos was a parallel passion. “At night we used to sneak under the covers and listen to N.W.A and Public Enemy, Ice Cube and Eazy-E were our heroes.” Very young, they formed their first group, Gangsters with a Curfew (GWC), which morphed into Wolf Pak (Wolves on the Lookout for Pigs and Klansmen). “We used to hum. We used to all hum the same way that we play our horns now, everybody on beat boxes or making harmonies, and we’d pass the mike around and rap.”
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